Freakons

Mekons + Freakwater = FREAKONS

Mekons (beloved, mythical British rabble-rousing beast) and Freakwater (also beloved, yet often derided as godmothers of Alt-Country) have allied their sundry song & dance talents for the forces of good. Together they are FREAKONS, and they have joined forces to sing songs about coal mining, of all things.

Oddly, Freakwater and Mekons were bound to each other at the start, by the rich seam of Anthracite coal running the width of the Atlantic Ocean from Wales to the Appalachian Mountains. The music and culture of mineral resource extraction, ecological disaster, and worker exploitation are their shared heritage. FREAKONS, the eponymously-titled album to be released March 22, 2022 (Fluff & Gravy Records), is the first fruit of this visionary musical union.

The Mekons and Freakwater have been friends for decades, forged in the punk rock/art school crucibles of late ’70s Leeds and mid ’80s Louisville respectively. Both bands mined British folk and American classic country music for three-chord songs whose lyrics fit the nihilism or political rage or outlandish joy of the moment. Many of these songs were about coal mining. Traditional songs about heroic union organizers, deadly mine disasters, wailing orphans, or mining's grim history of economic and ecological devastation fit seamlessly alongside each band's original material. This is where FREAKONS were born, from the very bowels of the earth.